


Sirius Black and the eleven times he fell in love with Marlene McKinnon

by VellaNikola



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1970s, F/M, First War with Voldemort, Marauders, Marauders' Era, Post-Hogwarts, Young Sirius Black
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 13:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16535255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VellaNikola/pseuds/VellaNikola
Summary: By the time he realized what he was feeling, he already knew of eleven distinctive events that led him to feel the way he did. By then, he knew he was in deep. But none of that mattered - no matter how strongly he felt, he would never say the words. Saying those words, those four little words, meant he would have to admit it. And he couldn't. Not even to himself.tumblr: https://vellawrites.tumblr.com/post/176139195223/sirius-black-and-the-eleven-times-he-fell-in-love





	1. 1-5

1.

The first time was in third year. He stood among his housemates and watched her stand as tall as she could possibly stand in the dimly lit corridor, shoulders squared and glaring down the much taller seventh year who stared right back with a cocky smirk painted across her face. The paintings lining the walls murmured their disapproval but none made any move to alert a teacher (because the paintings of Hogwarts loved a good duel just as much as the students did, they were just less apt to admit to it).

At the spoken command, the two girls raised their wands in unison and Marlene’s sixth year prefect brother spouted off the rules before he counted down from ten and jumped out of the crossfire.

Before the older girl could finish shouting out a babbling curse Marlene’s sharp voice rang through the corridor.

“ _Stupefy_!”

The seventh year blinked for a moment in surprise but a moment was enough for Marlene and suddenly the little girl burst forward with the energy of a coiled spring. One by one, every spell and hex she’d learned to that point spilled forth from her wand each with a practiced flick and he cheers rose among the gathered students as the little third year clearly gained the upper hand against her opponent—until she fell to a dead stop less than an arms length away.

She watched the older girl pick herself up off the dusty floor and rub her tailbone where she’d fallen—her grip on her wand tightened. “Well don’t hold back on me  _now_ ,” she barked.

Her senior merely smiled that wicked, condescending smile in response and in the time it took her eyes to narrow, Marlene’s wand was knocked from her hand in a wordless command and her feet flew back, seemingly of their own accord. The girl’s knees cracked to the ground at her original spot and with a few more casted commands, she fell over in a mess of laughter, twitching as the tickling charm wracked her body.

Heels clicked against the stone in the silent hall.

The seventh year approached slowly, watching the effects of her victory with that unwavering smirk and she towered over the younger girl and used her toe to flip her onto her side and look down at her face.

“You’ll never beat me, Marls.”

Marlene groaned through her laughter as her opponent crouched down to say something quieter to her, something the onlookers weren’t privy to but that made Marlene’s face screw furiously. With shaking limbs, the little girl lashed forward and yanked the other girl’s wand out of her hand and whipped her arm to point at the window behind them.

“ _Finestra_!” The glass shattered around them with a deafening sound and both girls turned their faces from the blast. As the air stilled, no one dared to take a breath.

The older girl wiped a single long finger across her cheek, pulling it back to inspect the pooling red that stained her skin, and she leveled Marlene with a single look. “We had two rules, Marlene. We don’t draw blood and we don’t break anything.”

She whipped her hand out and snatched her wand back. An orange light flashed from the tip of her wand as she rose to her feet and Marlene’s legs stilled against the stone with an audible groan. By the crook of her arm, the older girl pulled her jelly-like body up against her side. The crowd murmured in disappointment at the abrupt end of the duel and a path cleared among the students towards the infirmary.

The strangest thing of all, however, was the stupid grin on Marlene’s face.

“I knocked you down,” She sang, her useless feet dragging against the ground. “I get your room.”

The older girl rolled her eyes. “Yes, you nitwit, you get my room. But what’s really important is that you learned your lesson about mouthing off to me in front of everyone.”

Marlene just scoffed. “You’re not mum. You can’t tell me what to do.”

“I knocked you on your arse in front of  _all_  your classmates and you’re still arguing with me? You really don’t learn,  _do you_?”

Marlene shook her head exuberantly. “I don’t care if you won—I still  _knocked down_  the best duelist in Hogwarts.” Her eyes glinted as the two sisters passed by the group Sirius stood among and he couldn’t help but smile as he heard her parting words—“And it was easy.”  


2.

Fifth year, one evening after curfew in the early autumn, he and James were out running about as they often did at night—and especially now, Sirius ran harder than he ever had before, as though he could escape his reality, his family, his past if only he got far enough away.

As he came near the lake, he heard a small sob and found Marlene with her arms wrapped tightly around her legs on the bank.

He approached her timidly (because even though he was a smaller dog at the time, he knew it could be frightening for a strange animal to come out of the darkness with no warning). She looked up and wiped away a tear and welcomed the dog to her arms, sobbing into his shaggy fur as she told the story of her worries and her broken heart, how her eldest sister had been struck fighting dark wizards—an auror like their father was—and while that was nothing new, this time they weren’t sure if she was going to  _make it_. She sobbed as she recalled all the ways her mind convinced her there was something she could have done even though she was only fourteen and definitely lacking the skill set to fight dark wizards on her sister’s behalf, despite how much she yearned to do so. Sirius’s chest knotted and his heart broke for her, wishing he could hold her with his own two arms and wishing even more that that might be what she needed in that moment (but he knew full well that wasn’t the case; the only thing that could mend her heart now would be an owl from St. Mungo’s bearing the words she needed to hear the most).

With the dog cradled in her lap, they remained like that for the greater part of an hour before she pulled a napkin with the rest of a roll from dinner out of her pocket and offered it to the mutt as she made her way back to the castle before the night frost set in.   


3.

When he left Grimmauld Place, he didn’t say anything to anyone. James knew, of course, but only after a week of pushing and prying to get the story out of him after Sirius had shown up on his doorstep. The others found out thereafter, though none of them would expressly address the event out of respect for their friend. But even though they kept their silence, word still spread as word was apt to do.

In what felt like no time at all and by the fourth day back, whispers of his name could be heard any time he passed by. A few brave souls approached him to ask about it but Sirius brushed them off with variants of, “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” or “ _they didn’t suit my style_.” Lily was one of the two that he spoke to sincerely on the subject and only after she cornered him in one of the secret passages out of the castle during her nightly rounds.

Marlene on the other hand hadn’t asked a question and she didn’t say a word. She didn’t look at him in pity like some of the teachers did and she didn’t glare at him from across the room like most of the Slytherin table had come to do (sometimes including Regulus, though he did note that more often than not when he met his brother’s eyes, the prevailing colour was hurt and confusion.) No, Marlene didn’t say a word about his family and she didn’t make a joke out of it.

She hugged him. It wasn’t long and it wasn’t short but when they parted, they did so without a word and all he could do was glare at her as she left and wonder when she’d use that moment against him in the time to come.

(She never did. They never spoke of it again.)  


4.

Fifth year when he had no friends left, she was still there.

Still  _Marlene_.

She still teased him the same and picked fights with him as always and mocked his pranks the way she did only days before when he had friends to be stupid with him. He’d still run into her, just like any other time, in the tower stairwells beside a window she’d pried open with a cigarette behind her ear and a lit one between her lips—she’d pass the spare to him wordlessly and pull a metal lighter from her pocket before he could ask. She didn’t act differently towards him like Lily did (and he appreciated Lily, of course, but the constancy was a breath of fresh air when he felt like he couldn’t breathe) and when she found him crying alone in the library she denied both that she had any idea what he was talking about—“I never saw you crying”—and that she ever saw him in the library at all—“couldn’t have been you.  _Do you even know where the library is_?”  


5.

Sixth year after he joined the team  ~~because she said she fancied quidditch players~~ , she kissed him square on the mouth when they won their first match of the year. On the field in front of everyone, she just  _grabbed him_  by the face and kissed him before running over to their seeker and scooping the fifth year off her feet in celebration with a strength that both frightened and impressed him. 


	2. 6-10

6.

Sixth year was when he found her stepping in as a couple of older Slytherins were wailing on Regulus because Sirius had picked fights with them earlier that week—and it was common knowledge among those who messed with Sirius that one of the easiest ways to get to him was through his brother whether or not either boy admitted to it. She hexed them and when they were gone, Regulus yelled at her that the didn’t need her help—and in typical Marlene fashion, she didn’t stand for a moment of it and yelled right back at him to stop being an  _unappreciative twat_.

Sirius noticed after that how Regulus would smile at her when they passed each other in the halls or from across the courtyard and although the brothers were not on speaking terms, Sirius knew then that his little brother had a  _crush_ on  _Marlene_.  


7.

During their seventh year was the second time he saw her cry.

Now when he said that he saw her cry, Sirius didn’t mean in the way she’d cried the first time he witnessed the strange anomaly on that crisp night by the lake. This time it was at Rosemerta’s pub and if he didn’t know her as well as he did, he might have mistaken the shimmering in her puffy eyes for something else. But he knew Marlene and he knew what it looked like when the heart was heavy. He just wasn’t familiar with the look on her.

He slid into the booth beside her quietly and waited until she noticed him, wiping her cheeks as she turned to him and then he waited for her to speak—waited longer than he would have liked, but he couldn’t bring himself to pry. Finally, she spoke, and her voice was as bold as ever but he could hear something small and broken in the way it carried.

“I thought things might be different this time,” she admitted.

She told him all about the boy she’d been dating—he had no idea she’d been dating anyone seriously in the first place. She didn’t do that, after all, for this reason exactly. She’d seen sister after sister and both of her brothers have their hearts broken time after time since she was young and Marlene had sworn early that she wouldn’t  _ever_  let that happen to her.

“But I’m stupid and I had to go and catch feelings.”

He placed a hand on top of hers. “That doesn’t mean you’re stupid, Marls. It means you care.”

“Fat lot of good that did me.” She shook her head and laughed up at the low beams above their heads. “Dorcas was right—I should have just stuck to girls.”

He laughed at that too. “What fun is it to pick?”

Marlene rolled her eyes. “Everyone has to pick sooner or later.”

“Says who?”

“ _Everyone_ —I mean, what’s the point of  _all this_  if you never find the  _right person_?”

Her eyes burned in the candlelight when he caught her eye and for half of a second, Sirius forgot how to breathe. He hoped beyond hope that she couldn’t see into his thoughts and she couldn’t feel the way his heart wanted to reach out for her own to hold. Those feelings were for him and him alone.

“Maybe finding the right person isn’t about choosing. Maybe it’s about finding the someone who doesn’t make you choose and still loves you all the same.”

The girl couldn’t help but smile at that. “It’s a lovely thought, Black, but that’s a pipe dream if I’ve ever heard one. People like that don’t exist.”

A long second passed between them as his words weighed heavily on his tongue before at last he couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Well, I wouldn’t make you choose.” He wished he’d held his tongue.

Her eyes snapped up to his and like he’d been struck with a silent spell, he couldn’t look away from her even as she looked at him in the most peculiar way. She tilted her head, caramel hair spilling around her in soft waves. “You wouldn’t?”

“Of course not,” he said. “As long as you didn’t make me choose, I’d never ask you to give up half of yourself. Besides,” he grinned as he scooted towards her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, “it would be a disservice to the world to keep all our raw sexuality restrained.”

She laughed in spite of herself and shoved him. “We wouldn’t make it a week, Black.  _I’d eat you alive_.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, love.”

They remained like that for a few moments before their friends started trickling in through the door and the quiet booth filled with new voices and laughter and smiles and the two slid apart, his arms warm where he’d pressed along beside her. She felt lighter—like the holes that had been punched out by that boy whose name she’d forget in no time at all were hardly there at all.   


8.

The day she became an aunt for the first time, he saw her light up in a way that took his breath away. She passed the photograph across the breakfast table after ripping into the letter like it held her last gulp of air and the gleeful laugh that tore from her throat released a swarm of butterflies in his stomach. He looked down at the beautiful woman in the photograph and picked out every way they looked alike while she rambled on about her new nephew.

“Kurt is a dumb name,” he finally remarked as he passed it back to her and shoveled a spoonful of porridge into his mouth—because surely the rumbling was just hunger.

She crossed her arms and glared at him. “What would you have named him, then?  _Scorpius_?”

His nose scrunched in response. “ _God no_ , McKinnon. That’s a bloody horrid name. Something  _sensible_ —something like  _Jeff_.”

With nothing more than a raised eyebrow, Marlene scoffed at him and bounded off to the next table to show off her newest family member. Sirius watched her go with half of a smirk but every time he blinked, he could see only her blinding smile burned into the back of his eyes like a ghost.   


9.

On the sunny seventh of April, 1979, Sirius stood beside James Potter and watched Lily Evans walk towards them for the last time. Marlene stood beside her and smiled that blinding smile she saved for the few occasions such as this and by the time the day faded into a perfectly crisp evening, they stood beside James and Lily  _Potter_  as they shared their first kiss as husband and wife.

Sirius would deny with his dying breath that Marlene was telling the truth when she went around the party telling all their friends how he’d cried as James gave his vows (“If he’d just stuck to the script we wrote yesterday, it wouldn’t have been so sappy,  _okay!_ ”) but when he turned to snap at her, he found she hadn’t faired much better as she carefully wiped away the smeared makeup from her wet eyes. James and Lily danced and laughed and smeared cake on each other’s faces, as Remus  _assured them_  was a muggle wedding tradition, and as the night faded into a sea of stars, the guest trickled away little by little.

Sirius and Marlene swayed alongside a handful of others and Sirius pressed his lips to her feather-soft hair, his eyes falling shut as her fingers tightened on his shirt and he decided that this was one of those moments he wanted never to end.  


10.

When Sirius broke his leg playing muggle football, he did so without the knowledge that Marlene had went on to be a  _healer_  at St. Mungo’s. He was more than surprised that she hadn’t become an Auror like her father and most of her siblings had, like James had been trying to convince him to do for some time since they left Hogwarts.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe she had the skills to do it, it was just that in all his years of knowing Marlene, he’d grown content in the knowledge that her skills lied with _inflicting pain_  and not healing it. So when her face was the one he was greeted with after hobbling in with Remus’s help, it was a  _bit of a shock to say the least_. Her hands were surprisingly soft as she manipulated the offset bone in his shin—but that didn’t stop him from groaning in pain.

His fingers curled against the bedsheet and he let out a string of curses that would have earned him a scolding from Lily if she’d heard the things he said.

“Fuck, McKinnon, if I’d known you were going to be the one healing me, I might have taken the broken leg instead.”

Her hands stalled and she lifted her head to glare at him. “If you don’t want my help, you’re welcome to walk away, Black. Though I’m not confident you’ll get very far.” This time, her grip was rougher as she jolted the bone into place and Sirius bit the pillow in his hands to keep from screaming out.

He cursed at her again and she smirked at him from the corner of her eye. “If you stop squirming so much, it wouldn’t hurt so badly.”

“If you weren’t so rough it wouldn’t hurt so badly, either.”

“And here I thought you liked it rough.”

Sirius gasped at her out-of-the blue suggestion. “Healer McKinnon, I am  _aghast_. Here I am, a humbled  _injured_ man, and you have the mind to take advantage of me in my state?”

“What state is that?  _Insanity_?”

He laughed. “You’ve got me there.”

Marlene just shook her head. “All these years and you still haven’t changed one bit.”

With more effort than he cared to admit to, Sirius pushed himself up to rest on his elbows and watch as she worked over him—her face always spoke levels beyond her words.

“I saw you four months ago, Marls.”

She didn’t meet his eye, but he could see the sad way hers turned down. “It feels so much longer,” she murmured.

It felt longer for him, too.

He knew what she was thinking about, the friends they’d lost—Mary MacDonald being among the worst, Amelia Bones’s brother and parents, even Caradoc Dearborn, whose big blue eyes brought back memories that felt like young summer days, had disappeared one day and still had yet to be found. There was so much loss and so much still left to lose—he couldn’t even think of the idea of one day losing her, too.

Sirius cleared the emotion from his throat. “How is Dorcas? Are the two of you still living together?”

This time, she did spare him a glance as her cheeks colored. “Dorcas is lovely  _as always_ ,” she replied with a small, tight smile. “We’re still living together—but we’re not,  _eh_ , together anymore.”

His brows rose in surprise as it seemed his attempt to lighten the mood had flipped before his eyes. “Oh,” he mumbled, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know—”

The young woman just shook her head, giving a little laugh. “It’s better this way; we’re better as friends, anyhow.”

He couldn’t say one way or the other if he agreed, but he’d seen just how enamored the girls were with each other through the years at school and a small part of him had always thought they would end up together.

He cleared his throat again. “What happened?”

“With Dorcas?” She clarified—when he nodded, she shrugged her shoulders in a small response. “A lot happened, I suppose.”

She brushed down the apron on her skirt and turned away from him, appraising the vials of potions on the shelves behind them with a keen eye and quick hands. She found what she’d been looking for and returned to his side, moving to sit beside him on the bed this time.

“I guess the biggest part was that she wanted me to choose.”

She wanted her to choose—Sirius’s mind flashed back to a simpler time just over a year earlier when they were still in school and they spent their evenings drinking butterbeer with their friends in the perfect cozy pub. He knew exactly what she was referring to and by the look on her face, she knew that he remembered just as clearly as she did.  

After another pause, Marlene shrugged. “But it doesn’t matter now.” With a loud pop, she pulled the cork from the bottle in her hand and passed it over to him with a grin.

“Bottoms up, Black.”

He didn’t dare take a whiff of the potion inside. “This is exactly what I think it is, isn’t it?” At Marlene’s nod, he threw back the contents of the vial and groaned to keep himself from hurling.

“Why do you hate me, McKinnon?” he whined.

She laughed at him with that familiar tone he hadn’t heard in far too long and she smiled in that way that so few had ever seen. “ _Someone’s got to keep you in check_.”


	3. 11

11.

By the summer of 1981, their tasks for the Order of the Phoenix had driven all of them in completely separate directions.  
James, Lily, and Harry were in hiding still and the looming threat of he-who-must-not-be-named was as stifling as ever. He still saw them at the Order headquarters, of course, but it was just never the same as it used to be. Aside from the ten minutes he’d been around a week or so earlier when they’d all gathered for the photo that Dumbledore insisted would boost morale, Remus hadn’t been heard from in weeks (or maybe it was months, it all felt the same at this point) and Sirius could count the times he’d seen Peter over the course of that year on a single hand. He saw the Prewett brothers more than he saw his own best friends these days and as he went from one job to another, there were familiar faces everywhere he looked—but never the ones he wanted to see. He was lonely, he was angry, and above all he could feel his mind slipping further and further into the darkness he’d tried for years to shield himself from as easily as anything he’d ever felt before.

But he had a solution; Sirius drank. He drank often and he drank a lot and if a day went by without a bottle in his hand, he wasn’t sure whether to call it a good one or a bad one. Nights spent at the bar or nursing a bottle in his flat turned into mornings doing the same and those spilled further into long work days sipping coffee that was more rum than caffeine.

Those days, waking up hungover had become normal and waking up still drunk from the night before was almost as common which is why when Sirius woke up that particular morning with his head pounding like a chorus of bells, nothing seemed amiss. Except one thing—

Marlene.

He stopped cold in his tracks and took in the sight of her sitting on the kitchen counter as if it had happened before, as if she’d been there a dozen times and as if seeing her face was just another day in the life and it was just normal. It wasn’t normal. He wondered if he was still drunk, maybe, but the pounding in his head assured him that was not the case but it had to be that because he couldn’t think of any other reason he’d be seeing her in his flat.

But Merlin if she didn’t look lovely right where she was—her hair was longer than he’d ever seen it before with pretty fringe framing her face. She stripped back the peel of a banana, appearing not to have heard him yet though Sirius very much doubted that was the case—he wasn’t a quiet man and his waking state wasn’t any different.

His socks scraped loudly against the wood floor.

“You know,” he laughed when she jumped at the sound of his voice, “if you wanted something to put in your mouth, I can find you something better than that.”

(He winced and not just at the shoddy pick up line—he sounded like he’d been gargling broken glass for most of the night.)

Marlene looked him over, from his long messy hair and outgrown stubble to the way his crumpled old joggers hung low on his hips. Merlin, he looked just as awful as he did when she found him the night before. She smirked and took a big bite of the fruit.

“Good morning to you too, Sleeping Beauty,” she said through a full mouth.

Sirius rolled his eyes. “That’s Mister Sleeping Beauty to you, McKinnon.” He rubbed his tired, bleary eyes and stumbled forward a few steps to cradle his head against the counter. “How can you be eating this early?”

“Early?” Marlene lifted her wrist, reading the time stamped across her watch. “It’s a quarter past ten already.”

“Like I said—early.”

Marlene scoffed and finished the last of the banana, dropping the peel onto the counter at her side. “Your sense of time is all screwed up, isn’t it?” He just shrugged weakly. She wasn’t wrong, but he wouldn’t be the one to admit it aloud. “Do you drink like this all the time now?”

Like she was one to talk—Marlene had spent most of their years at school building her reputation for drinking even the most seasoned of older students under the table and if she didn’t have her lucky flask tucked away in the pocket of her robes, she had her backup flask in the hidden pocket of her bag. He didn’t reply and she didn’t ask again but she watched him stumble around the counter to grab a bottle of aspirin from the top of the refrigerator.

“Do you remember anything from last night?”

He counted the pills in his hand and yanked the door open to display the near-empty chilled shelves inside. “I remember enough to know we didn’t sleep together.”

Sirius didn’t mean for his words to come out so callous, so jaded, but by now it was just second nature to him to speak with that tinge writing his tone.

She waited as he rummaged around inside but Marlene McKinnon had never been known for her patience and Sirius was clearly stalling. “Do you remember anything you said?”

A glass bottle clinked and scraped against the shelf and a second later, the top hissed and fell to the floor.

“You mean when I told you I was in love with you?” He tipped his head back and poured half the bottle down the back of his throat.

“Yup,” he popped, the word dripping wryly from his tongue. “I remember that too.”

In fact, he was hoping that she didn’t remember it—he’d been counting on it, really. Whether it was the alcohol or his own mind, he’d lied awake for long enough before rolling out of bed, turning over and over the words he’d uttered so carelessly into her hair the night before as she helped him into his own bed. He chugged the rest of the beer and tossed the bottle into the basket with a dozen or so like it.

Marlene didn’t know when her knee had started to bounce or when she’d started tapping her nails against the cold surface at her side but Sirius noticed and his silver eyes snapped to the motion like it had personally wronged him.

“Can you cut that out?”

Her fingers stopped almost immediately, but that didn’t mean she was any more calm. “Don’t you think that’s something we should talk about?”

“Nope.”

“No?”

Sirius’s hand scratched at his unkempt jaw and his eyes felt heavy like he hadn’t slept in days. “No,” he repeated, “I don’t think we should.”

That was the wrong answer and he knew it—the fire in her eyes lit almost immediately and in an instant, she was on her feet, following after him as he made a b-line for his bedroom once more.

“Why the fuck not?” Her voice was as shrill and demanding as ever before and it rang through his ears like a whistle.

“Because, Marls, what good would it do?”

She reached out for him and pulled him to a stop, her grip stronger than he’d ever remembered. “Did you mean any of it?”

He groaned. “Don’t make me answer that.”

“Well did you?”

She looked up at him with those big brown eyes that demanded answers, demanded so much more than he had the capacity to give, and he felt his resolve melting away into the pools of chocolate brown.

“Yes,” he answered at last, reluctantly. He looked away, unable to hold her eyes. “I meant every word.”

She stumbled back a step and Sirius almost laughed at the absurdity; the ridiculous notion that she would be so fearless coming at him on her terms, ready to call him on his bullshit, but the second it turned out to be real she recoiled. His hand raked through his hair again (James warned him that if he wasn’t careful, he’d pull it all out if he kept that habit up).

Marlene’s chest rose and fell and her gaze never left his face, not for a single moment.

“You’re in love with me?” The way she repeated it was like she didn’t really believe a word of it and he didn’t really blame her.

“Yes.”

Marlene nearly laughed, but she couldn’t make the sound escape. “How—” The girl blinked and licked her dry lips. “How long—”

“Have I been in love with you?” This time he did laugh but it was hollow and humorless and weak. “Fuck, Marlene, I don’t know. Eight years?”

“Eight—” she balked. “Eight years?”

He shrugged, as though it would lessen the meaning of the words. As though he could bat the thought away now that he’d released it and never again hear from the nagging, trilling voice that haunted his mind and his dreams.

“Give or take.”

He’d spent so long convincing himself that the first five times didn’t count because that sounded so much better than the truth. But they counted, every last one of them, even if only in the smallest of ways. They counted to him.

“And you never said anything?”

“Would you have believed me if I had?”

The way she looked at him, the doubt that echoed in her expression, made his breath catch. He’d always thought if this moment came, he would be prepared for it, but now that the moment was coming and going he found he’d never been more wrong.

“Or do you only believe me now that I’m broken and alone and a bottle away from drunk?”

For what might have been the first time ever, Marlene was silent.

Sirius sighed and all he could do was nod. “That’s what I thought.” He’d barely turned from her again when she said something that stopped him in his tracks.

“You’re right.”

His eyes narrowed. “What?”

“You’re right,” she repeated, softer this time. “If you’d told me then I wouldn’t have believed you—hell, I wouldn’t have listened.”

He already knew that. Fuck, did he ever know it, deep in his bones and buried in that cold tight knot in his heart.

“But,” Marlene’s voice wavered ever so slightly but she didn’t look away and she looked to be mulling over the words churning in her mind, “now…”

Now.

Now was a dangerous word, teeming with a dark and powerful and heavy kind of hope.

He sucked in a breath and something in him compelled him towards her in two long strides. “Now?”

He wished he could hear what she was thinking when she opened and closed her mouth but he knew he had to wait—and he’d waited this long so for once that was something he knew he could do.

Marlene’s eyes gleamed. “I can’t say it, Sirius.”

“Then I will.”

And then, there was nothing between them but the soft, clean fabric of her shirt and his hands reaching for her face, thumbs grazing the smooth plane of her cheeks for the first time.

“I love you,” he whispered.

After that, there truly was nothing that kept them apart. His lips crashed to hers in a desperate, needy way that spoke so much more than he could ever say. She let out a little sigh that stirred his heartstrings and he pressed deeper into her as though with that kiss alone, everything could be okay again—and nothing would be broken. There was only him and her, the soft but dry skin of her lips like static against his own and so much more intoxicating than he remembered—than he imagined—and her little hands on the bare skin of his waist, clammy and warm and so perfectly Marlene.

The eight years it had taken him to say those words suddenly didn’t matter anymore because now that they’d been said aloud, that was what was important and her skin was so smooth beneath his fingertips, like the velvet of a lost memory he never knew he had. It was sweet and deep and oh-so-right and though he could remember all the reasons he’d never done this before—all the doubts and whispers that plagued his dark mind—he couldn’t imagine a life where it didn’t happen exactly like this. Not now that he was finally holding her, finally kissing her, finally honestly and undeniably in love with her.

The what ifs were insignificant and the loneliness had faded along with them, even if only for that perfect moment.

“Marls.”

“You taste like an ashtray,” she mumbled against his lips, “and the end of a cheap bottle of booze.”

He couldn’t imagine a more perfect way for the moment to be ruined.

He pulled away from her, reluctant to leave her warm skin, and sighed. “If I’d known you were this good at talking dirty, I would have done this ages ago.”

Marlene licked her lips and laughed, her head thrown back in that ethereal way she did that he’d missed so much. His fingers tangled into her hair, finally relishing in the silky way it felt, and he smiled for the first time he could remember smiling in longer than he cared to admit.

“Let me take you on a date—a real date. With dinner and flowers and you can wear a nice pair of lacy knickers that you won’t let me see.”

Her eyes searched his face with a little smile. “Will you brush your teeth first?”

“I might even shower if you’re lucky.”

She laughed again and for what might have been the hundredth time that day alone, she stole his breath away.

“Don’t go spoiling me now, Black. One step at a time.”

“This Friday,” he insisted.

“How about Saturday,” she countered, her thumb skimming over his bottom lip. “Friday is my dad’s birthday—it’s a whole family event.”

Truth be told, any day was perfect as long as she said yes. “Saturday it is.” He leaned in one more time and kissed her as softly as before and when he pulled back, her eyes were closed and her face was as beautiful as he’d ever seen it.

“It’s a date.”

//

There was no way he could have known that would be the last time he would ever see Marlene alive.

On the evening of Friday the seventeenth of July at the celebration of her father’s sixtieth year, a tragedy overtook the McKinnons.

‘They got her whole family.’


End file.
